Tricks and Treats: 28 Spooky Ideas to Inspire Your Next Halloween Event

For a private Halloween party planned by Event Du Jour in 2017, Revelry Event Designers created a dramatic vignette featuring a large candelabra, skeleton pillows and props, black furniture rentals, and an abundance of deep red roses from Celio's Design.

For a Halloween event, catering firm Good Gracious Events created witches brooms made from cheese and pretzels.

The Wizarding World of Harry Potter area at the Universal Orlando theme park has launched its new Dark Arts experience, which runs on select nights through November 15. Projection mapping, lighting, and special effects are projected on the theme park's Hogwarts castle. The experience can be included with an in-park event as an add-on for attendees.

Throughout the park's Hogsmeade village, which is filled with spooky green lighting and fog during the Dark Arts shows, actors dressed as Death Eaters—followers of Harry Potter's villain, Voldemort—interact with guests.

Svedka has partnered with Cody Goldstein, mixologist and founder of Muddling Memories, to create a series of Halloween-inspired cocktails. The "Bloody Carrie" cocktail is a Bloody Mary garnished with a celery stalk, banana peppers, cilantro sprig, and olives stuffed with salami. The "eyeball" can also be made using Lychee stuffed with a blueberry.

The 25,000-square-foot I Like Scary Movies experience ran this summer in Los Angeles. The pop-up art installation immersed attendees in reimagined takes on The Shining, A Nightmare on Elm Street, The Lost Boys, and other classic horror films. The photo op-friendly space, which included a wall of paper boats inspired by It, was created by experiential artist Maximillian of Ultra Productions.

In one area of the I Like Scary Movies pop-up, guests could climb inside a Beetlejuice-inspired coffin.

Starting on October 4, the High Line Hotel in New York will offer a "Pumpkin Service, Bottle Service" experience every Wednesday. While guests enjoy a bottle of Veuve Clicquot Brut Yellow Label NV, the hotel's "master carver in residence" Brent Heuser can carve pumpkins with guests' portraits, initials, or other designs of their choice. Reservations for the 45-minute experience start at $135.

For a styled photoshoot at City Libre in Los Angeles, event designer Fathom Affairs created a Tim Burton-inspired wedding. Halloween-appropriate black, white, and red paper goods were designed by Calligraphy Nerd.

A cake from Sugar Studio continued the Tim Burton theme.

The shoot included a moody tablescape with black and red linens and purple napkins from Luxe Linen. Bridezilla Events handled floral design, while tabletop rentals came from Dish Wish and furniture rentals came from La Piñata Party Rentals.

For a fun Halloween catering idea, Blue Plate in Chicago can create Rice Krispies treats in the shape of pumpkins. A pretzel serves as the stem.

Beverage brand Fanta held a Halloween-theme escape room experience as part of its “Flavors That Thrill” campaign in October 2018 in New York. The event, which was open to the public, invited people to solve spooky puzzles and participate in Fanta-focused challenges. The escape room’s design highlighted the brand’s limited-edition cans, which featured Fanta Halloween characters. In-room design elements were created by the Escape Entertainment team.

The inaugural Nights of the Jack, created by a team of event and hospitality veterans, featured more than 5,000 hand-carved jack-o-lantern tributes to Rodeo Drive, the solar system, Disney princesses, Kim Kardashian, and more. The festival, which took place in Calabasas, California, will return for its second year on October 3. See more: Why This New Pumpkin Festival Is Getting a Ton of Social-Media Buzz

For its "Christmas in July" holiday showcase in San Francisco in July 2018, design and production firm Blueprint Studios created an area with a Nightmare Before Christmas-inspired theme. A tablescape of painted pumpkins depicted a night sky filled with bats.

Next to the table was a Christmas tree featuring a skeleton and Halloween-inspired ornaments.

Freed's Bakery in Las Vegas—the subject of the Food Network's Vegas Cakes TV show—is offering a selection of elaborate cakes for Halloween. Included is a smoking cauldron cake prepared with bubbling green fondant; the cake comes with instructions for creating a smoky dry-ice effect.

Cort Events' Valencia line includes a spice-orange velvet accent chair appropriate for Halloween events. The line also includes a coffee-brown velvet compact sofa.

Cort Events can also use festive graphics to personalize bars, tables, seating, and lighting. Pictured is the Marche Swivel Ottoman.

Chicago's Blue Plate Catering can cover strawberries with frosting that evokes candy corn.

For a styled photo shoot at Big Daddy's Antiques in Los Angeles, planner Anything But Gray Events complemented the vintage setting with a moody, Victorian aesthetic that's appropriate for Halloween events. Dark table runners from Luxe Linen were topped with florals from Mulberry Row and rentals from Sundrop Vintage.

The moody theme continued to a black cake from Vanilla Bakeshop.

The Watergate Hotel’s Top of the Gate rooftop bar and lounge in Washington serves four hot cocktails inspired by fall: Kentucky Apple Cider with Maker’s Mark, spiced apple cider, cinnamon, and anise; Keoke Coffee with Kahlua, crème de cacao, brandy, and coffee; mulled wine with brandy, cloves, cardamom, citrus, and cinnamon; and spiked hot chocolate with Bailey’s, Jameson, and Swiss hot chocolate. See more: 20 Cocktail Ideas for Festive Fall Events

To celebrate the first season of The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina, Netflix worked with creative agency MKG to build an immersive, interactive house in Hollywood in October 2018. Guests were asked to choose between the show’s normal Baxter High and witch-filled Academy of Unseen Arts. During the fan portion of the activation, guests could make their own autumn-inspired floral crowns (choosing between light and dark flowers) and get nail art that included spiders, black cats, and Baxter High’s logo.

The Sabrina house also hosted an official premiere party, where series star Kiernan Shipka hosted a mock seance. Other cast members signed guests into a Satan-inspired guest book, and a DJ performed on an altar of candles. See more: Netflix's Spooky 'Sabrina' Premiere Asks Guests to Choose Between Light and Dark

A Halloween-theme party at Paramount Studios in Los Angeles featured a build-your-own candy apple apple bar. Chad Hudson Events produced the event, which also included illuminated jack-o’-lanterns and spiderweb gobos.

Target hosted a family-friendly Halloween event in Los Angeles in October 2017 that included a digital scavenger hunt, a piano made from pumpkins, and an interactive corn maze. The David Stark-produced event featured a giant door adorned with the Target bullseye made from a collection of gourds. Guests rang the doorbell to begin their journey through the maze. See more: Inside Target's Interactive, Family-Friendly Halloween Maze

Candy company Sugarfina has a new line of Halloween treats that includes gummies in the shapes of ghosts, skulls, and zombie brains. The candy can be packaged in bento boxes shaped like haunted houses or coffins; shipping is available nationwide.